I'm surprized that nobody has noted that the driver had to have been exceeding the speed limit by a fair amount to cause that much damage to his car, so that's another infraction against the driver, besides DUI and hit-and-run, and resisting arrest.

I live in a building that is immediately above where this guy got hit. The reason he got hit is because there were cars parked diagonally on 8th Avenue taking up two lanes rather than the normal one lane for a car parked normally. It's unclear why the police department has allowed these cars to park the way they did - perhaps bribes or maybe the parked cars belong to the fire department folks on the corner. Bottom line, this guy wouldn't have gotten hit if the cars weren't parked diagonally because he wouldn't have had to drive onto the third lane where he was exposed to traffic. 47th and 8th just happens to be one of the few spots on 8th Avenue where the sanitation department hasn't not cleaned up the snow. I wonder if there's a link. Oh, the guy that got hit is hispanic, that's okay we don't care about him or any conspiracy theories.

Non-Blind Justice

If this guy was driving a delivery truck or a bus with a suspended license he would've gotten a ticket and let go.

Where ARE the trolls? Shouldn't they be shaming Gothamist for publicizing a bike story? I would have thought they'd be here pointing out how badly the bikers skull damaged that poor Lexus and caused the traffic jam that didn't allow him to get where he was going quickly enough.

Gotta call out Aleksey on this, since just 2 days ago he praised the BQE drivers:

A very welcome change from bikers that pedal away like cowards.

The appropriate comparison would have been to asshole DRIVERS who drive away like cowards, like in this story. And an obvious difference between hit-and-run drivers and hit-and-run cyclists is that drivers actually kill people.

I'm not going to defend the drunk, he is an idiot. Keep pushing your agenda.

By the way, the biker was going the wrong way, if the car was going the wrong way on a road you would have some sort of accident as well.

Again, read the story. If the biker was going the wrong way, the car driver was too, since the driver hit the biker from behind. Would have been head-on if someone was going the wrong way.

I don't have an agenda. I'm not particularly pro-bike - I drive, actually. I just thought it was a dick comment then, and still do.

There isn't a story every month about deadly hit-and-run cyclists - they don't exist. It's the hit-and-run drivers that leave dead people behind, and it happens way too often.

Yeah, learn to read before quoting me. I never wrote that meaning that it was a welcome change the biker was killed on the BQE.

I wrote that when they updated the story that both drivers stayed with the victim after bunch of you started crying how drivers fled the scene.

I never wrote that meaning that it was a welcome change the biker was killed on the BQE.

Yeah I know, stupid. It was a needless and wildly inaccurate generalization about cyclists being "cowards" that you made just to be a dick.

There was good reason to think that one of the BQE drivers drove off. For one thing, the news (and Gothamist) reported that was the case. And we actually have a problem with hit-and-run drivers in this city. Hit-and-run cyclists, not so much.

Hey, you know those crazy bicyclists are sooooo dangerous, they need to be ticketed and forced to register their vehicles. The guy on the bike was probably riding recklessly and purposely ran into the car, breaking the windshield with his head, so it was really the cyclist's fault. The cops should have given his lifeless body a ticket for failure to indicate a turn into the gates of Hell ...

I know it's probably this asshole bikers fault. Buy the gerrknger guy should have stopped. He will get a long sentence
If he had stayed at the scene
Zippo
The reason he ran is
A. He carjwxked the lex
B. He was high as a kite and had no license or was an illegal alien

When you run from a cat accident if the license plate is not noted at the time of the accidents chances are he would never be caught
That street is crawling with cops
Bad luck buddy
Enjoy the slammer for a few years
If the poor guy dies and you were drunk or high on crack.maybe 5 to 10

Did you even read the article?

...

The bike messenger was riding on the wrong side of the street -- the bike lane on 8th avenue is on the west side of the street -- he should have been riding there and he would not have been hit. West 47th St runs westbound, so if the bike was turning to go east on 47th he was also going the wrong way.

Shut up now.

You're coming to conclusions based on almost no information. Another commenter seems to have put some light to this, that he was pushed out into the lane because of double parked cars. I have biked up 8th ave in mid-town more often than I like, once the protected path disappears there might as well not be a lane at all. It's almost completely blocked by parked cars and trucks the whole way after that. You seriously can't even go a quarter of a block without having to swerve around a vehicle either blocking the lane or suddenly cutting you off to get in or out of a parking spot. It's extremely dangerous and in my experience it seems to be the avenue with the highest rate of speeding and no one gives a shit that you're there or has no clue because they aren't paying attention. If I have to go anywhere above 23rd I avoid 8th ave now because of how dangerous it is to cyclists, and I'm very experienced riding in the city.

There is no wrong side of the street when the city is covered with snow, douche. So stick the other foot in your mouth.

If the biker was going the wrong way, then so was the drunk driver, since the story says the car struck the cyclist from behind.

Also, given how much snow there is on city streets, if there was a bike lane anywhere on that street it's probably a mess. Cyclists only have to ride in bike lanes when it is reasonably safe to do so. If they are obstructed, they don't have to ride in them. Nevertheless, some paint on the ground isn't much of a defense against a drunk guy behind the wheel.

There was also a double-parked car, the one the cyclist was thrown under after being hit. No word on whether or not it was a factor in the accident, but you can be sure there is no NYPD crackdown on illegally double-parked cars.

This is an open-and-shut case of a drunk driver. Why make up scenarios that put even the slightest blame on the cyclist? If you're drunk you can not be on the road. Period.

You're making the huge assumption that the only reason a delivery boy wouldn't use a bike lane is because it was obstructed. The ONLY reason a delivery boy ever uses the bike lane is to go the wrong way down it.

You're making the huge assumption that bike lanes aren't ever blocked by cars. (The delivery guy was thrown under a double-parked car after he was hit.)

I'm not saying that delivery guys don't go the wrong way down streets; it's a huge problem, no question.

But in this specific case, the only case I'm commenting on, the delivery cyclist was hit from behind by the car. If the delivery "boy" (a 28-year-old married father of three, by the way) was going the wrong way on his bike, then so was the car driver. Although it's wrong no matter what, it does seems like it would be a heck of a lot worse for a Lexus to speed the wrong way on a major avenue than a tiny little bike.

The driver was drunk. Period. Shouldn't have been on the road on so much as a moped. If he and his car hadn't hit this dark-skinned immigrant, he might have hit a pretty white tourist or fashionable New Yorker. And then you would have been really upset!